The town devoured by the sea

In the October 1968 the residents of Abai village in Cheonghodong, Sokcho have been traumatized by what had been the biggest tsunami in the history. About 150 houses were flooded and fishing ships were destroyed by the powerful waves. The natural disaster had left painful memory to one who could do nothing but to watch her husband’s boat getting sucked into the ocean.

All the houses near the shore had taken on the biggest damage so Sokcho City Hall and the government had to build instant homes for victims, which is now called ‘Saemaeul’ meaning new town. Small houses that look identical sits next to each other as they create small allies. Before the area had been turned into a little town for these disaster victims, it housed graveyards for those who lost lives during the Korean War.

The refugees who had settled in Cheonghodong after the war couldn’t be so safe from storms and tsunami. Continuing relocation and moving may scatter their identity but the debris of places are reassembled through the individual’s memory and recorded as remnants of their history. By a Korean artist Shin Mi Jung

She is a Korean artist who does installation, media arts. Starting with the exhibition in an abandoned old factory, she has been working on turning her interests in peoples and places that are lost in the memory into art projects. www.shinmijung.com